


By the Fire

by TransverseLadybird



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (who love each other), After the Battle of the Dead, Best Friends, Emotions, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I should be sleeping, I'm having GOT feelings, Just a little scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransverseLadybird/pseuds/TransverseLadybird
Summary: Soon after the living defeat the dead, a scene between Jaime and Brienne. They talk about Cersei, and Renly.





	By the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is. I was just having a lot of feelings about Jaime and Brienne and how they never get to spend enough time together. So this is a totally plausible scene if they both survive the war with the ice zombies.

“We won, my Lady.” Jaime’s tired voice preceded him out of the darkness as he came to take a seat beside her fire. Fires littered the landscape; each tended by a few dozen soldiers. No one was alone in the night; no one would ever want to be again.

“It does not feel like it,” she said. She was so tired she could not inject any feeling into it. She could feel the physical hole beside her where Podrick should have been sitting. His sword lay alongside hers. She couldn’t let it go.

“We still have to defeat my sister,” he said, with dry humour.

She looked up at him quickly. They’d never discussed that part of his desertion. She knew he came North because it was the right thing to do – he wanted to regain his honour – but she didn’t expect that he would fight in the inevitable battle against Cersei.

“It won’t be difficult,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t have her followers’ loyalty. She only rules with fear, now.”

Brienne didn’t know what to say, so she satisfied herself with putting her hand on Jaime’s arm gently. She still wore her armour, while Jaime had removed much of his. He seemed to notice her gauntleted hand.

“Do you need a hand removing it?” He asked. It was the armour he himself had given her. She hadn’t been able to bear thinking about removing it. It only exposed the ragged hole of her missing squire.

She shook her head. He seemed to understand and only nodded, turning back to stare into the flames.

She shouldn’t have needed to ask. She should’ve been able to take him at his honour, but the words slipped out. “Will you fight?”

He didn’t look surprised at the question. Only resigned at having to answer. “I have to.”

“To earn your place?” She asked.

“Because it’s my fault we have to fight her.”

A crisper cold than the air spread through Brienne’s blood. “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

He covered her glove with his own gloved hand. The bitter cold didn’t allow for skin exposure, but she wished suddenly that she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers instead of just the pressure of his hand. She was glad for the flickering firelight in the dark that disguised her blush.

“I should have killed her before I left,” he said.

“Then you never would have made it out of King’s Landing,” she said sharply.

“That would have been the best trade I could have made.”

Brienne didn’t want to think of his death. Not when they were here, alive. Against all odds.

"Actually, you could give me a hand with these straps." She said, putting one gauntleted hand up to her shoulder, desperate to change the subject.

As soon as she'd shrugged out of her armour he wrapped a fire warmed blanket around her shoulders. She smiled tightly at him. Their companionship had gone cold; the echo of their words still lingering over the silence.

"The first person I ever loved in that way was Renly," she said tonelessly.

Jaime closed his eyes, swallowing heavily. She watched his throat convulse and wondered why he reacted so strongly to something he surely already knew.

"He was the first man to ever be kind to me when he didn't have to be." She'd only ever told the story of her dance with Renly once, and it was even harder the second time. _Brienne the Beauty_. It seemed even harder repeating that name to Jaime.

Jaime listened in silence, his only betrayal of emotion an increased tightening around his eyes and mouth.

Her last words fell into silence. Jaime rested his arms on his knees and hung his head. Brienne couldn't read his expression anymore and her anxiety grew.

"Maybe I shouldn't have told you," she murmured.

"No, I'm glad you did," he said, but he didn't sound it.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He shook his head.

"Jaime," she urged. "Talk to me." When he didn't respond she sighed. "Or at least look at me."

He looked up briefly and smiled tightly.

"It's just... I don't come across well in that story." He said it lightly, but his face was still tight.

"You're not in that story," she said, bemused.

"I was every single one of those boys, and worse," he said, "and you know it."

Jaime's mocking voice came into her head then. _You're even uglier in daylight._

"You're nothing like them," she said as the wasp-like memories of Jaime's disdain stung again and again. "You were honest."

"Ha," he said humourlessly. "Because I'm renowned for my sense of honour."

"Honesty, I said, not honour."

"You're probably my best friend left living and not even you can pretend I have any honour left."

"You've proved your honour time and time again now, Ser Jaime. You're the only one who still denies its existence." He was still silent so she added, with humour, "I won't pretend you weren't the biggest shit I'd ever met when I first knew you, but you've made up for that."

It was the first time she'd ever been anything but deadly serious to him. He stared at her like she'd grown an extra head.

She realised her words and started an apology but he cut her off.

"Please don't apologise, Brienne. Never apologise to me. Especially not for being who you are."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I keep killing Podrick in post-GOT fics, but I don't see that fighter doing anything but going out in a blaze of glory for the greater good. He is too self-sacrificing to live.


End file.
